Winter Solstice in St. Nacho's (St. Nacho's #5) - Z.A. Maxfield Page 0,24

permission, I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Tug was ‘their Thuong’ back in the day,” I said. “This is going to be shocking and painful for them. They’ll want to do anything they can to help. You know they will.”

“If your parents get involved, they’ll feel as anxious and helpless as you do right now. Is that what you want for them?”

“Not at all.”

“Do your research. Make decisions based on facts, not emotions. You’re good at that. You have a great head on your shoulders.”

“I—”

“Oops. I have another call coming in. Stay in touch, will you? I’ll worry about you.”

“All right. Be well.”

“You too.” She disconnected the call.

I normally found the noisy birds outside my bedroom window comforting and cheerful, but today, the sound scraped my nerves raw.

This was stupid. It was so stupid.

As if I’d stumbled into a nest of hornets, I couldn’t sit still.

I called Katie, but she’d already taken lunch and wouldn’t be free until after work. I didn’t call Mom because she had a sixth sense where her kids were concerned, and she’d know I had a problem. My mother could pry information out of a dead man.

I got out my laptop and opened it, ostensibly to check my emails. Instead, I googled addiction and recovery and fell into a rabbit hole of definitions, diagnostic tests, ads for national chain rehab centers, and YouTube videos about interventions.

After an hour or so, I found what Echo had me looking for—a local group for family members and friends of people with substance abuse issues.

God. What a quagmire. Would they make me read the AA book and study the precepts of twelve steps? Would I have to listen to the sob stories of people who were a lot closer to this than I was? Did I even have the right to be there, considering I was barely involved?

I wasn’t a casual observer, but I wasn’t on the front lines with a child or a spouse or a family member in danger. I’d just had a brush with the addiction experience, and it shook me badly.

The fact that I couldn’t let these thoughts go—that they haunted me—that Tug haunted me—proved I needed to explore them further.

The San Joaquin Valley Alano Club had apparently opened its doors sixty years before. The listing showed different types of meetings all day, every day.

Absurdly, they advertised some sort of happy hour.

I printed off the calendar and stuck it to the side of my refrigerator with a magnetic bottle opener.

I didn’t want to go, but maybe that meant I needed to.

I kept picturing Tug as he’d looked standing on the porch of the rehabilitation house—frail and diminished. I thought about the three separate times I’d had to use Narcan on someone in respiratory arrest. I thought about the war on opioids, and how Echo told me I’d been drafted.

Tug had grown on me. I cared. I’d seen him at his very worst, and I still held hope in my heart that I would someday see him at his best.

Hadn’t I been looking for a way out of my safe, boring existence?

People should really be careful what they ask for.

I didn’t want to go to that first meeting, but fate pushed me forward. For my sanity and the safety of others, I had to take a stand. I had to find out what I could do to help people like Tug and still keep myself safe from caring too much.

Hope was the most destructive thing of all.

Hope was going to kill me if I didn’t learn something useful I could do with it.

I dressed, got my keys, and went to face my destiny.

Chapter Ten

Hope House Day 1

This is for you, heroin.

You probably thought you had me, didn’t you? Last time we were together, I practically died. You had such a strangle hold on me that I didn’t realize how destructive you were until I nearly rode you right into the oblivion I thought I was after.

God, I was pathetic.

You and I did shit I am so ashamed of I wish I’d died. You and I lied to strangers, we scammed our friends, we stole from people who cared about us. You and I sold my body for cash so we could be together.

After I lost my shit and my dignity and my health, you were standing right there, whispering in my ear that it was all okay. That you had this. That you’d take care of me.

But it wasn’t okay. It will never be okay. But maybe that’s okay,